Naturopathy and Its Professors (1932)

Morris Fishbein, M.D.

After his decease, and a severe casualty deemed fatal by skilful
physicians, we discovered that the Principle of all healing and
the law that governs it is God, a divine Principle, and a spiritual
not material law, and regained health." -- Mary Morse Baker
Glover Patterson Eddy.

F all the nations of the world, the United. States is most
afflicted by its healers. Besides those holding the degree M.D.,
signifying doctor of medicine and, nowadays, some seven years
of study following high school graduation, a host of queer practitioners
pervade the medical field. They have conferred on themselves strange
combinations of letters, indicating the peculiar systems of healing
which a somewhat lax system of legislation and law enforcement
permits them to practice on an unwary public.

Cult follows cult, and quackery succeeds quackery, frequently
with amazing rapidity. Moreover, many cults seem to be definitely
confined to small districts and fail to come to light in the available
literature on the subject, or even in a careful investigation.
Then, too, a single temporarily successful cult like chiropractic
-- itself the child of osteopathy and magnetic healing -- gives
birth to many offshoots which again propagate more bizarre offspring
and unusual hybrids. A complete picture of the farcical scene
would require endless research. The United States unquestionably
bears the palm in every class so far as healing cults are concerned.

The scientific medicine of today is based on the discov-eries
made in the fundamental sciences. It holds to no single theory
as to the causation of disease and it, does not insist correspondingly
that the successful treatment of disease de-pends on the use of
any single method of manipulation or administration. The cults
may be classified easily into men-tal healing cults, mechanical
cults, electric cults, nature cults and similar divisions, since
they adhere definitely to such single devices. Other cults may
be classed merely as nonmedical, since they deprecate the use
of medicaments. They are founded, moreover, on peculiar fallacies
with relation to the anatomy of the body, on misconceptions of
certain physiologic functions, or on exaggerations of the relative
importance of certain parts of the body in maintaining it in a
constant state of health; these cults avoid the fundamental sciences
as far as possible. Rather than attempt to correlate the fallacies
on which the cults are based with established knowledge, cultist
leaders are inclined to deny flatly the facts that have been demonstrated.
Of germs and their causation of disease, they take little cognizance,
referring constantly to the "germ theory." Many cultist
leaders denounce the eating of meat because of some weird notions
of body chemistry. Others employ apparatus of such intricacies
as would bring a flush of envy to the cheek of Rube Goldberg;
mechanically such machinery excites the ridicule of the humblest
tyro in the science of physics. The complacency with which cultist
leaders dispose of the fundamental facts of science in. promoting
their views may be taken as sound evidence of their essential
eccentricities.

THE ORGANIZATION OF NATUROPATHY

In one of the suburbs west of Chicago was a sanatorium conducted
by a son of a naturopath, one Dr. Henry Lindlahr, who was a graduate
of a low-grade medical college in Illinois called the National
Medical University; that also has passed into the beyond. Chief
in this college (?) was old Dr. L. D. Rogers, once secretary of
the National Association of Panpathic Physicians, an attempt to
organize all of the comical cultists into a single group.

The evidence available indicates that Henry Lindlahr fell early
in life for the strange notions of health and disease exploited
by Bernarr Macfadden in the moron's bible, Physical Culture, and
also for the schemes of Benedict Lust, founder, as he claims,
of the main school of naturopathy in this country. Of him, more
later! As in every other naturopathic institution, the methods
of diagnosis used in the Lindlahr institution were preposterous,
the methods of treatment varied and ridiculous. The slogan of
the institution was that rallying call of all the peculiar cultists
-- "no surgery, no drugs, no serums." The methods of
treatment used include strange diets, air baths, water cures,
light treatments, chiropractic, osteopathy, homeopathy, herbals,
psychoanalysis, and any other monkey business that any strange
healer might bring temporarily in the limelight. For instance,
schools of naturopathy teach, among other courses, sysmotherapy,
glucokinesis, zone therapy, physicultopathy, astrological diagnosis,
practical sphincterology, phrenological physiology, spectrochrome
therapy, iridiagnosis, tension therapy, and naprapathy.

THE DEATH OF EUGENE DEBS

When Eugene Debs, eminent leader of the Socialist party, left
Atlanta Prison, he was sent by a woman practitioner of the Abrams
electronic methods in Terre Haute, Indiana, to the Lindlahr institution.
One night I went to see him with Sinclair Lewis and Paul Dc Kruif.
Lewis was interested in Debs as material for a novel on labor.
The ride was an event, but the details are of little interest
for the present story. As a physician I was much surprised at
that time to find a patient in a sanatorium coming down to see
guests on his own responsibility just before midnight. We sat
on the porch of the institution talking until the early morning
hours. I explained to Mr. Debs casually the nature of the institution
to which he had committed his health. I remember that Lewis pleaded
with him to get some modern medical attention. I did not see Debs
again, however, until the night before his death. The freethinker
in politics is likely to fall for freethinking science just as
he falls for political panaceas.

One evening in 1926 I received a telephone call from the Lindlahr
Sanatorium. The person who called said that Mr. Debs was dying
and that his brother wished to have me secure for him the advice
of some medical specialist. Mr. Debs, it appears, had told his
brother that he wanted me to be notified in case he was ever in
a serious condition. To the person who called I said that a competent
medical man would ask first to have the patient removed to a reliable
hospital. The patient was in this instance too far on the last
trail to permit removal. Mr. Debs, it seems, had gone to visit
Carl Sandburg who lives in Elmhurst near the sanatorium. While
returning, the great socialist had lapsed into unconsciousness.
For two days he had been treated in the institution, then his
condition being apparently fatal, his brother had been sent for.

In view of the circumstances I consented to ask two well known
medical specialists in Chicago to make the trip, and I went with
them to see Mr. Debs. What was the procedure followed in the naturopathic
institution when its chiropractic director and its medical consultants,
such as they were, were confronted with a serious situation? Mr.
Debs, when we saw him, was clearly the victim of malnutrition.
He had been treated with the strange diets and the starvation
treatment recently so strenuously supported by Bernarr Macfadden
in his periodicals. The noted speaker for socialism lay in bed
barely breathing. His heart was in a state of fibrillation --
a mere twitching of the fibers rather than the sustained beat
characteristic of an active heart. The pupil of one eye was dilated
and the other contracted. The record sheet of the institution
made no note of this observation, which would have indicated to
any competent diagnostician a probable disturbance in the condition
of the brain. Confronted with this situation, the healers of the
naturopathic sanatorium had attempted to overcome the congestion
in the lung due to impeded circulation of the blood by applying
diathermy or electrical heat. Perhaps because of the unconsciousness
of the patient, he had suffered burns which were visible on the
skin at the points of application of the electrodes. Apparently
he had not been turned in bed as a competent physician would always
turn such a patient to prevent congestion from settling of fluids
in the lung. The tissues were practically dehydrated. Water had
not been put into the body, as it must be put into the tissues
of every unconscious person if life is to be saved. An unconscious
man does not voluntarily ask for a drink.

Disturbed by the failing heart, the practitioners, whose slogan
was "no surgery, no drugs, no serums," endeavored first
to support the heart by giving a prescription which was listed
on the history chart merely as "eclectic remedies."
An inquiry revealed the fact that cactus, an old eclectic remedy,
had been prescribed a plant preparation which was once seriously
tested by the American Medical Association. During the tests it
was found that cactus solution put into the tissues of a dog would
not produce a symptom. Then when the eclectic remedies failed,
an attempt was made to give digitalis. This sovereign drug in
diseases of the heart almost always produces results when properly
administered. The tincture had been given in small doses; a few
drops placed upon the tongue. Finally when this remedy failed
also in stimulating and controlling the heart an attempt was made
to inject a preparation of digitalis into the muscles. Obviously,
since the practitioners were unaccustomed to the use of drugs,
they hardly knew how to avail themselves of potent remedies when
they found them necessary. The incident is typical of naturopathic
treatment.

THE BASES OF NATUROPATHY

A naturopath ought to be, as his name implies, a healer who
depends on natural methods of cure. However, while walking barefoot
in the dew, exposing one's self in the garb of nature to the rays
of sunlight, the eating of hay, grain, and oats, and similar technics
may constitute a part of every course of naturopathy, the cult
has gradually embraced every strange system of healing that has
come across the American horizon in the past twenty-five years.

The chief exponent of naturopathy is one Benedict Lust of the
American School of Naturopathy in New York City. Following the
name of this philosopher appear usually N.D., D.O., D.C., and
M.D. The N.D. signifies doctor of naturopathy; the next two degrees
cover osteopathy and chiropractic; the M.D. claimed is from some
homeopathic and eclectic medical college, although on the witness
stand Lust was apparently unable to prove graduation. Lust claims
osteopathic licensure in New Jersey, but there is no evidence
that he has ever been licensed for anything in New York. On the
other hand, he has been convicted of practicing without a license
and fined $100 in that state. In his Naturopathy School and Health
Home he offers, as do all other naturopaths, the whole category
of peculiar technics. Benedict Lust used to be found constantly
among the advertisers in Macfadden publications. There he promoted
from time to time his scheme for blood washing. The technic of
blood washing can be had also by correspondence for $100. It is
taught, furthermore, in several resorts operated by this minor
prophet of healing in Florida and in New Jersey.

From the first, naturopathy has been developed as an effort
to give chiropractic something more to sell than adjustments of
the spine. Several chiropractic schools teach naturopathy. Probably
50 per cent of naturopaths have come from the ranks of chiropractic,
and any chiropractor can become a naturopath by taking a three
months' postgraduate course in a naturopathic school. To dignify
these institutions with the title of schools is exalting them
far beyond their merits. The average course runs through 24 or
36 months with a short school day. Students come and go as they
please. One school has twenty different names for its courses
and offers a liberal reduction to a student taking four courses
at the same time. One school counts attendance in each class twice
-once for naturopathy and once for chiropractic. Another school
gives each student two diplomas, each diploma bearing a different
name for the school. These systems are planned primarily to meet
special requirements in various state laws. Our laws regulating
the practice of healing are the joke of the universe. Of course
no school of naturopathy is associated with a regularly established
hospital. The students learn what they can, when they can, on
whom they can.

Recently the Department of Medical Education of the American
Medical Association undertook a special investigation of naturopathic
schools. The shrine was visited on November 7, 1927, when it was
situated in an old apartment house on E. 35th Street in New York.
There it used two floors and a portion of a third. The equipment
included an osteopathic table, five chiropractic adjusting tables,
a chemical laboratory with one table big enough for two students,
two old cupboards, some glassware, and some Bunsen burners. Twenty
students were in the college, and fifteen were graduated in 1926.
The school meets only at night and the students pay two hundred
and fifty dollars annually. In Philadelphia the naturopathic college
and hospital is housed in an old apartment building, the hospital
thus far existing only as a dream. Nevertheless the college issues
an eight-page announcement which not only gives a picture of the
hospital with a complete list of its staff, but also announces
the appointment of six of the graduates as assistant physicians
to the hospital. Although the school claimed ninety students,
about forty were actually found somewhere around the institution.
Most of the courses are given at night.

In Newark, New Jersey, a two-story dwelling house, the First
National University of Naturopathy, is operated by one F. W. Collins,
N.D., A.M., and his assistant John Parsons Fields, who it seems
is D.C., Ph.C., N.D., D.C., D.Ph., and M.D. In the same institution
are also the Collins and Hill Realty Co. and the Standard Products
Corporation, which manufactures a water softener and cleanser.
This school gives each graduate two or three diplomas and charges
him six hundred dollars tuition. Actually the school advertises
some twenty bizarre courses, representing twenty different colleges.
The one classroom of which the twenty institutions can boast,
included when seen thirty chairs, a blackboard, a table, and a
piano.

The most recent scheme of geheimrat Collins is the American
Academy of Medicine and Surgery, incorporated in New Jersey not
for pecuniary profit and registered with the Recorder of Deeds
of the District of Columbia, under Congressional Act. An admission
fee of $25 charged at first was raised later to $50. A certificate
in the form of a diploma, granting the degree of a Doctor of Medicine
and Master Diagnostician is given to those who attain a total
average of 75 per cent or over in the examination required by
the Academy. This diploma or certificate, be it understood, does
not permit or give anyone the right to practice Medicine and Surgery.
Each member was requested to send in at least once yearly a report
of his investigations, relative to the application of surgery,
drugs, serums, vaccines, electrical and drugless treatments, and
mental therapeutics.

The Academy, President Collins now announces, which has been
attacked from many sides, and has been inspected through the Federal
Department, Department of Justice, Attorney General's Office,
and the Post Office Department, is still in good standing.

Any graduate physician or surgeon, medical or drugless, who
desires to become a member of the Academy must furnish at the
time of application a photograph of himself and photostatic copy
of his diploma or diplomas. He must answer 99 questions and, upon
receiving a total average of 75 per cent or over, he is granted
the diploma of the American Academy of Medicine and Surgery, signifying
that he passed a successful examination and conferring upon him
the degree of Doctor of Medicine and Master Diagnostician. In
case of failure in the examination his admission fee into the
Academy is refunded. So far no list of diplomates or failures
has been reported.

The investigation recently completed revealed ten naturopathic
schools actively engaged in turning out peculiar healers for those
who like their medicine fantastic. Pennsylvania has four of the
schools and New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, Maine, Florida, and
California provide one each of the remainder.

Among the strange devices promoted through schools of naturopathy
are biodynamochromatic diagnosis, in which the patient sits facing
east or west while his abdomen is thumped, and colored lights
are thrown upon it; iridiagnosis, which claims ability to diagnose
disease through the color of the iris of the eye; spectrochrome
therapy, in which the patient is advised to wear clothing and
garments according to the colors of the spectrum; and, in many
schools, zonotherapy. On this technic the body is divided into
zones lengthwise and crosswise, disease in one zone being cured
by the application of little wire springs around the fingers and
toes controlling other zones.

Benedict Lust's own definition of naturopathy includes the
"art of natural healing and of the science of physical and
mental regeneration on the basis of self-reform, natural life,
clean and normal diet, hydrotherapy (Priessnitz, Kneipp, Lehmann,
and just system), osteopathy, chiropractic, naturopathy, electrotherapy
(sunlight and air cult), diet, phytotherapy, physical and mental
culture to the exclusion of poisonous drugs and non-adjustable
surgery."

Out of the schools of naturopathy and our exceedingly lackadaisical
laws controlling the practice of healing have come opportunities
for other inspired prophets to develop still more bizarre institutions
in medical instruction.

The American College of Sagliftology, located in San Diego,
California, is controlled by one P. Hollow Poole and his wife.
Poole assumed the title of doctor and was promptly indicted for
misuse of that title. His technic is primarily a part of the uplift
movement. Mr. Poole is convinced that health depends on keeping
everything in the interior uplifted. He therefore sells corsets,
belts, rubber stockings, and other devices planned toward this
end. In his college anatomy, contourology and mensuration constitute
courses run-fling from six to twelve months. A graduate is called
a sagliftologist.

In St. Louis Dr. William H. Woodfin, A.M., Ph.D., D.D., first
a Methodist and then a Congregational minister, has a college
of divine metaphysics. There he offers courses in the psychology
of business success, metaphysical interpretation of the Bible,
Biblical literature, comparative religions, and the master mind
system. Dr. Woodfin confers the degrees of Doctor of Psychology,
Doctor of Metaphysics, and Doctor of Divinity for from $20 to
$100. He must be busy, since he has about twenty stenographers
constantly employed. He not only trains healers but himself treats
the sick.

In Seattle, Washington, in 1919 the Universal Sanipractic College
was organized. The word "sanipractic" was defined as
the "practice of health" with the keyword "ilimination."
The devotees were concerned with all methods of treatment except
drugs and major surgery, but permitted the administration of herbs
and teas. The Washington state law permits sanipractors to try
everything except the administration of drugs. The students were
therefore primarily chiropractors who wanted unlimited rights
to practice. This institution represents merely another attempt
to find a short route into the practice of healing for those who
want to enter by the back door.

Naturopathy and the allied cults represent capitalization for
purposes of financial gain of the old advice that outdoor life,
good diet, enough exercise, and rest are conducive to health and
longevity. When these simple principles can be linked with the
printing of worthless pamphlets, intricate apparatus, or faith
cures, the formulas yield gold. By these systems, misinformation
in the field of science is spread widely among what is probably
one of the most ignorant people in the world relative to the organization
of their own bodies and their care. The slogan, "no bugs,
no drugs, no surgery," is used to catch the unwary. The appeal
is one likely to attract particularly the laborite, the radical,
and the freethinker. The writings of Upton Sinclair on these subjects
mislead thousands. The example of Eugene Debs must have misled
hundreds of others. In time of stress when pain becomes impossible
to bear even by the self-hypnosis of Christian Science, the nature
cure healer himself or the fanatical exponent of faith healing
reaches eagerly for the hypnotic tablet of a barbituric acid derivative,
the soothing needle of the narcotic, or the blissful unconsciousness
of anesthesia. Then when the heart is no longer able to urge

the tired circulation and begins feebly to discontinue its
automatic functions, the physician is called in; shaking his head
mournfully he provides enough digitalis to slow the beat and make
it more forceful. To this state of affairs one may apply the reverse
of the slogan of a famous rat-paste: "They don't die in the
house." As the spectre of dissolution peeps over the foot
of the bed the naturopathist, chiropractor, manipulator and faith
healer depart. The physician enters, fountain pen in hand, ready
to sign the death certificate.

The practitioners of naturopathy, according to Dr. Louis S.
Reed's late report to the Committee on the Costs of Medical Care,
number some 1,500. Whereas most cults embrace a single conception
as to the cause and healing of disease, naturopathy embraces everything
in nature. Benedict Lust, N.D., D.O., D.C., M.D., already mentioned,
presents the following definition:

a distinct school of healing, employing the beneficent agency
of Nature's forces, or water, air, sunlight, earth power, electricity,
magnetism, exercise, rest, proper diet, various kinds of mechanical
treatment, mental and moral science. As none of these agents
of rejuvenation can cure every disease (alone) the Naturopath
rightly employs the combination that is best adapted to each
individual case. The result of such ministrations is wholly beneficent.
The prophylactic power of Nature's finer forces, mechanical and
occult, removes foreign or poisonous matter from the system,
restores nerve and blood vitality, invigorates organs and tissues,
and regenerates the entire organism.

The real naturopaths were, of course, such healers as Father
Kneipp, Priessnitz, and others who advocated natural living and
healed by the use of sunlight, baths, fresh air, and cold water,
but there is little money to be made by these methods. Hence the
modern naturopath embraces every form of healing that offers opportunity
for exploitation. Thus, there have grown from naturopathy a myriad
peculiar doctrines which run the gamut from aeropathy to zonotherapy.

The schools of therapy having any status whatever are three
in number, one in Philadelphia, one in New York, and one in Florida.
In these schools the strange notions that have been mentioned
are taught to candidates who may not be able even to read or write,
because preliminary requirements in such schools are given little
if any consideration. Although a high-school education may be
mentioned as a necessity, its equivalent may be substituted and
the equivalent, in the judgment of the admitting officers, would
give pause even to such a mathematical genius as Einstein. The
professors themselves are without baccalaureate degrees or, in
most instances, any other degree of importance; and the students
are not even the equivalent of the professors.

A few of our states provide for licensing naturopaths but most
states include them with the drugless or limited practitioners.
Once admitted to the practice of healing, these cultists begin
at once to practice unlimited medicine. Since the weapons of medicine
against disease are potent for harm as well as good, such practitioners
are a menace to the public health and a drain on the public purse.
A description of a few of the extraordinary doctrines follows:

A

Aerotherapy. Among the hundred or more types of healing
offered to the sophisticated is aerotherapy. Obviously, aerotherapy
means treatment by air, but in this instance hot air is particularly
concerned. The patient is baked in a hot oven. Heat relieves pain
and produces an increased flow of blood to the part heated. The
blood aids in removing waste products and brings to the part the
substances that overcome infection. There is nothing essentially
wrong about hot air therapy.

Since the time of Hippocrates and indeed even in Biblical legend
men have availed themselves of the healing powers existing in
nature. The light and heat of the sun, the burning steam from
natural hot springs, the dry air of the desert, and even the buffeting
of the waves of the sea have been used for physical stimulation
in overcoming disease. It has remained for the astute commercial
minds of our progressive land to incorporate these qualities for
their personal gain.

Aerotherapy as one department of physical therapy be-comes
a cult when it is used to the exclusion of all other forms of
healing. In New York a progressive quack established an institute
equipped with special devices for pouring hot air over various
portions of the body. He issued a beautiful brochure, illustrated
with the likenesses of beautiful damsels in various states of
negligee, smiling the smile of the satisfied, under his salubrious
ministrations. In this document appeared incidentally the claim
that hot air will cure anything from ague to zoster. The same
claim has been made by the faith healers and the apostles of manipulation.
But the first call it Christian Science and the second call it
chiropractic.

Alereos System. Here is a system of drugless healing
which "recognized the human body as a wonderful and perfect
machine, which, properly adjusted and taken care of, will run
without friction." It emanates from Brooklyn. "The Alereos
system," says the folder, "in relation to the human
machine, occupies the place of the skilled mechanic to the disabled
engine. It searches for the causes of the trouble and seeks to
remove them by its tools. These are the hands, aided by several
mechanical appliances and vibrations." The home office supplies
heat and mechanical vibration with "several specially constructed
apparati (sic)." Not content to sell its simple hot air and
vibration treatments on their merits, the Alereos system plays
strongly on the osteopathic and chiropractic claims of contractions
and pinched nerves, and condemns all drug treatment as poisoning.
It is the acme of exploitation of the sweat bath and massage.
One takes ten treatments for twenty-five dollars in advance; obviously,
the cost is little, provided one is not fooled into neglecting
tuberculosis or ulcer of the stomach, which are among the conditions
mentioned in the Alereos folder.

Astral Healing. Casanova, international lover and charlatan,
tells at great length of his delving into magic, of the drawing
of horoscopes, and of astrology. The mystery of the stars has
always had fascination for the multitude and it would have been
strange, indeed, if some astute healer had failed to take advantage
of this folly in the founding of a cult. The Astral healers advertise
in foreign language newspapers. They read the diagnosis from the
horoscope and then make an additional charge for giving the advice
indicated by their readings.

Autohemic Therapy. For many years one L. D. Rogers was
the head and chief owner of the National Medical University of
Chicago. The school was a low-grade institution, virtually a diploma
mill. Rogers is a promoter of medical schemes and fancies. Like
many other cultist leaders he is constantly founding societies
of which he is the chief panjandrum. Once he was the permanent
secretary of the National Association of Panpathic Physicians,
apparently an attempt to organize all the comical cultists into
a single group. However, the society had only a brief existence,
and the permanent secretary was quite temporary. Then he began
to exploit a cancer serum and organized the American Cancer Research
Society, L. D. Rogers, president. Finally, he got the notion called
"autohemic therapy." "It consists," he says,
"in giving the patient a solution made by attenuating, hemolizing,
incubating and potentizing a few drops of his or her own blood,
and administering it according to a refined technic developed
by the author." Playing the game to the limit, Rogers also
advertises a one-hundred-dollar mail order course for other physicians.
He wrote a book called Autohemic Therapy and organized the Autohemic
Practitioners. Newspaper publicity in the form of full-page advertisements
and clever press agentry fetch the come-ons for the course. The
appeal is made cleverly to the anti-medical cultists of all varieties
by the slogan "without use of bugs or drugs." A clever
and shrewd old fakir is L. D. Rogers! There is not an iota of
scientific evidence that his method or his system ever cured anybody
of anything.

Autology. E. R. Moras, M.D., founder of autology, finally
arrived in the "booby-hatch." Before that, however,
he had achieved a considerable following through advertising in
the press, and through exploitation along the lines established
by Elbert Hubbard. Indeed, Elbert said of autology: "Dr.
Moras has written a Commonsense Book on Autology, and by so doing,
placed the Standard of the Creed of Health farther to the front
than any man who has lived for a thousand years." Ah, well,
Elbert was never much given to conservative statements! As might
be expected Moras also had the support of Physical Culture, Bernarr
Macfadden's major opus; of J. H. Tilden of Denver, who has some
fads of his own, and even of Luther Burbank.

Autology is a system of stereotyped hygienic and dietetic advice
sandwiched in between a lot of pseudoscience and bad counsel.
It is essentially another preachment of Ecclesiastes' urge for
moderation in all things. Unfortunately it was carried to the
point at which Elbert Hubbard said, "Moderation, equality,
work, and love you need no other physician." Moras exploited
his book at anywhere from $10 to $2, and on the side sold some
patent medicines. Finally, his eccentricity went beyond the bounds
of legal sufferance. He was arrested for insulting a woman on
a train; he attempted to blackmail Leon Mandel out of a million
dollars, and appealed to the President of the United States to
help him collect $50,000 from Parke-Davis and Company. So his
friends put him in a sanatorium!

Auto-Science. An Auto-Science Institute is conducted
in San Francisco, devoted, it appears, to practical psychology,
scientific serums, and suggestive therapeutics. The watch-word
is "Law of Creative Energy." Regular lessons can be
had for four weeks on trial, but the diploma, the degree, and
the "Auto-Science" textbook cost $35, which is a special
reduction from the sum of $50, the regular fee for the course.
The high priest, Dr. E. C. Feyrer, presents testimonials of grateful
imbeciles who have been cured of all sorts of things. It appears
that not only can you heal yourself, but you can help others by
mental broadcasting. Is there no protection against this sort
of thing? Must one be healed even when he enjoys ill health?

Autotherapy. This pleasant little idea grew in the mind
of a homeopath. presumably obsessed with the homeopathic slogan
"similia similibus curantus," or "like cures
like." Dr. Charles H. Duncan of New York was able to have
his views promulgated through some of the good medical jour-nals
and their strangeness secured him unusually great news-paper recognition.
"Autotherapy," as the name implies, is "self-therapy"
or "natural therapy." The word "nature" is
a term to conjure with in cultism. Carrying the idea of the "hair
of the dog that bit you" to its ultimate interpretation,
Duncan recommends the healing of boils by cooking up and swallowing
the matter from the boil; for dysentery he filters the excretions
and injects the fluid that filters through; for tuberculosis he
filters the sputum and injects the filtrate. He claims all sorts
of cures. It is the belief of competent authorities that the system
has no basis in scientific knowledge and that the results secured,
if any, are merely such as follow injections of foreign substances
of any kind into the body.

B

Biodynamochromatic Diagnosis and Therapy. Whenever the
irregulars in the healing art assemble for the purpose of exchanging
trade secrets and telling each other how good they are, George
Starr White, M.D., F.S.Sc. (Lond.), D.C., Ph.D., LL.D., Los Angeles,
is among those present. He was "second vice president"
of the Allied Medical Associations in 1918. He is also opposed
to vaccination and helps out the American Medical Liberty League.
White o was graduated from the New York Homeopathic Medical College
when he was forty-two years old. He played with Abrams' spondylotherapy
(see later) and also pushed Fitzgerald's "zone therapy"
(see later). Then he developed the fancy-name system that combines
a lot of hocus-pocus -- it seems one diagnoses disease by a "sympathetic
Vagal Reflex." To elicit the said phenomenon, the patient
faces east or west and his abdomen is thumped until a dull area
is found. Then colored lights are thrown on the abdomen and the
thumping is continued. A ruby and blue light with associated dullness
means one thing and a green light combination another. That is
to say, Dr. White says so; really, it doesn't mean anything. Once
Dr. White took a flier in the patent medicine business. The F.S.Sc.
(Lond.), with which he is endowed, means "Fellow of the Incorporated
Society of Science, Letters, and Arts of London, Ltd." Lots
of people who play the same game as White have the same letters.
The cost of the elegant diploma is about $. Sometimes White also
puts after his name D.C., Ph.D., LL.D. No one knows where he got
those. The method was given a beautiful send-off in Mr. Macfadden's
Physical Culture magazine by Dr. Edwin F. Bowers in February,
1918. Dr. Bowers is not a doctor of medicine, and the only M.D.
he has is the one Macfadden gives him. Strange how the same names
recur again and again in these stories of the ghoullike activities
of the harpies who live by exploiting the sick!

In 1925, White produced the last word in this fancy business,
the Rithmo-Chrome and Duo-Colors. He has a lot of books to sell
and a lot of apparatus. For instance, in his latest announcement,
Figure 10 shows a "person sitting on a Filteray Cushion and
receiving Filtered Ultrared Rays while doing Rithmo.Chrome breathing
and inhaling Oxygen-Vapor or Medicated Vapor and at the time getting
therapeutic effect of the magnetic forces of the earth, as he
is grounded and facing exactly north and south." If the Duo-Colors
are added to this, Dr. White affirms, the patient is certainly
getting "Natural Methods Condenst." And if he isn't
getting that, what is he getting?

Biological Blood-Washing. This utter humbug is accredited
to Benedict Lust, of whom more later. He is one of the kingpins
of the naturopathy cult. Under "naturopathy" his record
will be made apparent.

C

Chirothesians. This peculiar group emanates from California,
and its fountainhead is the Western College of Drugless Therapeutics.
It combines a new religious cult with medical hocus. Many State
laws give amnesty to religious healers. The catalogue of the college
says: "While working under this title, healers ordained to
work are protected from annoyance by the state medical board."
Evidently a chirothesian is not limited to any system. One had
his office full of bottles labeled cancer, paralysis, rheumatism,
and tumors; another said that he made his diagnoses by examination
of the pulse and "irido-diagnosis." (For the latter
system, see Under "I.") Chirothesianism is apparently
a method of mixing religion and fake healing to get around the
medical practice laws.

Christos (blood washers). A half-dozen cults use the
term, "blood washing" as a come-on. It usually refers
to some method of purging the intestinal tract. The Christos cult
consists mostly of Negroes. Herb tonics are dispensed with the
claim that they are especially blessed by Christ, the Savior.
Taken in the form of tea, these herbs wash the blood of sin and
impurities. New York authorities arrested and prosecuted the Negro
leaders.

Chromopathy. Naturopathic physicians who practiced White's
colored light system on the side used this term to indicate the
healing of disease by colored lights.

Chromatherapy. Another modification of White's colored
light scheme.

E

Electric Light Diagnosis and Therapy. See Electrotherapy.
Electro-Homeopathy. A combination of electrotherapy and homeopathy.
(See under each.)

Electro-Naprapathy. A combination of two cults. (See
under each.)

Electrotherapy. The use of electric devices has a definite
place in the treatment of disease. It should not be thought, however,
that any electrician or machinist is competent to use such methods.
Electricity is a two-edged sword; in the hands of the ignorant,
it may wreak disaster. Actually its use should be limited to those
who have had the training of a physician and then given special
study to the use of electric devices or to competent technicians
working under the direction of a physician.

G

Geotherapy. New York investigators found a concern treating
disease by the application of little pads of earth -- hence the
grandiloquent title. A warning resulted in the abandonment of
the enterprise.

I

Irido-Diagnosis. The poetical notion that the eye is
the mirror of the soul evidently convinced a minor medical prophet
in Chicago that money might be made by founding a school of medicine
in which the diagnosis of all diseases would depend on the ability
to notice the changing colors of the iris or colored material
of the eye. With a remarkable genius for publicity, he succeeded
in attracting much free newspaper mention and in leading to his
school numerous ignorant satellites who desired to enter on the
practice of healing by some easy route. Among those attracted
have been a few regularly licensed physicians who sought to exploit
themselves and enhance their incomes by adding the claim of this
superior power to such as might already have been conferred upon
them by the state. Even today the practitioners of this vagary
burst into temporary luminescence in the sensation-seeking press.
Fortunately the prophet himself was accused by his wife of mental
vagaries. He gradually subsided!

K

Kneipp Cure. See Naturopathy.

L

Limpio Coinerology. A Mrs. Caroline M. Olsen and her
husband, Emil, hailing from St. Louis, adopted the name of Limpio
Comerology for their health service, which appears to have been
founded primarily on the doctrine of clean eating. In connection
with the teaching of the science, there were dispensed "Q-p"
and "Q-34," proprietary preparations, to make the clean
eating physically successful. Mrs. Olsen, obviously Norwegian
or Danish, explained that the term "Limpio Comerology"
was taken from the Spanish.

M

McLean. James A. M. McLean, born in Martinique, claims
that he is a geologist, evolutionist, pathologist, psychologist,
anatomist, biologist, chemist, erosionist, and theophonist. Like
many other quacks, he turned up in California, claiming in his
advertisement the special powers of reducing and building obesity,
and reducing various disorders, diseases and infirmities. His
system was a combination of physical, metaphysical, and spiritual
healing -- bunk from start to finish.

N

Naturology. This is merely another name for naturopathy.
This school was founded by a naturopath of the Benedict Lust school
who adopted this fanciful name to show that he knew things that
even they didn't know.

P

Pathiatry. This particular cult is trademarked. "It
combines the best principles of spinal adjustment, traction, manipulation,
deep massage, etc., administered by oneself. So simple and delightful
as to become a part of the daily toilet. Done anywhere, at any
time, while standing, even sitting; without appliance of any kind."

Poropathy. Arthur de Collard turned up in Richmond,
Va., and persuaded the legislature in that State, in 1918, to
license him to practice poropathy. Arthur claimed to be a cousin
of Napoleon and a graduate of several European universities. His
diplomas, he said, had all been burned, and he would not answer
the simplest question on the elements of medicine and surgery.
The bill defined poropathy and manipulative surgery as a new branch
of therapeutics. It employs no medicine taken through the stomach,
and does not employ the knife. Healing and curative agencies and
lotions, however, applied directly to the diseased organs and
to the nerves controlling those organs, through the pores of the
skin and mucous membrane, which are opened by medical manipulation,
immediately reach the disease or ailment through the eliminating
organs, and by this process heal and cure most of the ills to
which flesh is heir, including: internal cancer, cerebrospinal
meningitis, epilepsy, tuberculosis of the joints and heart disease.
This system, according to the bill, would adjust, heal and cure
broken bones, sprains, and dislocations. After a committee substitute
for the bill and various amendments to the substitute had been
rejected, the bill was passed and Arthur de Collard through it
acquired the right to practice poropathy in Virginia. There are
now several poropathists in the state who have taken a course
under De Collard.

Practo-therapy. This was a group of men and women, mostly
nurses, who treated human ills through intestinal irrigation.
"Practo-therapy" was evidently a fanciful title in place
of the word "procto."

Q

Quartz-therapists. A term used by "Naturopath"
irregulars who use quartz mercury vapor lamps.

S

Sanatology. Sanatology is a delightful title conferred
on his particular science of healing by Dr. P. L. Clark, Chicago,
who insists that he is the first man in the world to make the
pronouncement and prove that acidosis and toxicosis are the two
basic causes of all disease. In his school on Prairie Avenue in
Chicago he teaches people, so he says, how to remove the causes
and restore the body to normal. He issues little cards for free
consultation and blood-pressure test, which are the "come-ons"
by which he secures permanent contributors.

Somapathy. The Illinois College of Somapathy is located
at Elgin, Illinois, and its fond father is Dr. C. H. Murray. It
appears that this science is devoted to the body suffering. The
diagnostician feels around in the place where the nerves emerge
from the spinal cord and adjusts them. Then he continues his good
effects by applying ice cold, or material heated up to two hundred
degrees at the place of adjustment. Here again is an offshoot
of chiropractic and osteopathy, with which it is associated in
another school. Dr. Murray promises his graduates $10,000 a year
if they are successful.

Spectrocromists. This was an establishment operated
through advising individuals to wear clothing or garments according
to the color of the spectrum. How they came to the conclusion
as to what part of the spectrum the individual should assume,
in selecting his colors, is not clear. Perhaps it was for this
advice they charged. They have been arrested and fined.

T

Tropo-therapy. This was a group of food faddists advertising
special nutritional foods under this fanciful name.

U

Vita-O-Pathy. The name of this particular system indicates
how hopeless is any attempt to simplify the control of quackery.
Its prophet, Orrin Roberston, Ph.D., D.M., M.D., announces that:

Vita-O-Pathy is the essence and quintessence of the follow-ing
thirty-six systems with additional discoveries and inventions;
yet it is unlike any of them. Consequently it Restores Health
to Humanity without a Surgical Operation. It is based on Geometry,
a true science which contains the fundamental secrets of Ancient
Science, Philosophy and Religion.

Prana-Yama

Zoism

Spiritual Science

Psychic Sarcology

Somnopathy

Christian Science

Osteopathy

Chiropathy

Divine Science

Botanic

Allopathy

Biopneuma

Prayer Cure

Rest Cure

Diet Cure

Eclecticism

Hydropathy

Magnetism

Phrenopathy

Nervauric Therapeutics

Electro-Therapeutics

Chromopathy

Vita pathy

Homeopathy

Psychopathy

Magnetic Massage

Faith Cure

Biochemic System

Therapeutic Sarcognomy

Physio Medical

Mechanical Therapy

Suggestive Therapeutics

Auto-Suggestion

Tripsis

Spondylotherapy

Chirothesia

He has worked out a scheme of muddling the moronic mind, and
there are apparently enough persons of an intelligence below that
of a child of eight to provide him with plenty of victims. His
price varies from $40 a week to whatever he can get. It appears
that he was born on May 28, 1858, in Cass County, Missouri, under
the control of the Archangel Haniel, who it seems controls Friday,
and whose chief characteristic is spiritual love. Further than
this the deponent saith not.

Z

Zodiac Therapy. This group was an offspring, formerly
employed in an establishment called "Aero-therapy-Astral
Healers." On the walls of the establishment, on blue paper,
were photographic enlargements of signs of the Zodiac. The ceiling
was painted to look like the heavens. Persons desiring their horoscope
read, the effect of the horoscope on their health was determined,
for which a charge was made. Pamphlets were sold, also herb remedies.

Zonotherapy. One Dr. Fitzgerald of Hartford, Connecticut,
has divided the body into zones, lengthwise and cross-wise, and
heals disease in one zone by pressing on others. To keep the pressure
going he developed little wire springs. For instance, a toothache
on the right side may be "cured" by fastening a little
spring around the second toe of the left foot. Naturally, Fitzgerald
has never convinced any one with ordinary reasoning powers that
there is anything in his system -- except what he gets out of
it.

_____________________

Dr. Fishbein, who served for 25 years as editor of the Journal
of the American Medical Association, was probably the most vigorous
crusader against quackery who ever lived. This article was a chapter
in his 1932 book Fads and Fallacies in Healing: An Analysis
of the Foibles of the Healing Cults, with Essays on Various Other
Peculiar Notions in the Health Field, published by Blue Ribbon
Books in New York City.